Materials Needed
1 copy of 2001: A Space Odyssey
1 copy of Pink Floyd's "Meddle"
Necessary Steps
1. Play and pause Meddle on the last track, "Echoes." Do not let any time pass on the track.
2. Prepare 2001: A Space Odyssey right before the title "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite."
3a. Play 2001, and as soon as the title "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite" appears on screen, press play on your CD.
or
3b. Play 2001, and as soon as the title "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite" disappears from the screen, press play.
I have not determined which of these is superior, but I have always used 3a as opposed to 3b, as it is the popular choice.
Discussion
Echoes from Beyond the Infinite is about as perfect as a Synch can get. Sound cues sometimes match up, often do not, but the overall feeling, the lyrics, and the image all correspond. It turns Kubrick's horrific and bizarre travels through space and time into a wild ride only to be enjoyed. The music begins and ends morose, appropriately in tempo with the intensity of the film. The credits are the best part of this Synch; far be it for me to ruin it for you, though.
During the period that Echoes was written, Pink Floyd was naturally their experimental selves, but they had not yet achieved the full freedom of Dark Side's synthesized and pretty much high on pot sound waves. Meddle is the more bizarre of their albums, since it begins and ends with typical Floyd instrumental madness, but in the middle is filled with R&B, folk, and acoustic mellowness. Seamus, the song immediately before Echoes, is considered by some Floyd fans to be the worst song the band ever wrote. Waters was probably fighting for supremacy in the band during the time this was wrote, and I have no doubt that "One of These Days" and "Echoes" are the results of his inventiveness. (Listen to any of Floyd's albums now that Waters has left, and you can tell they're scrambling to manually create the insanity that comes probably too naturally on his solo albums.) Echoes is not the Floyd's best song, but it is probably the longest piece of pure inspired space rock they've ever made.
2001: A Space Odyssey is Stanley Kubrick's triumph. After his one and only box office success (Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb), he was given the freedom and finances to create the ultimate space film. Not wanting an action adventure, but desiring greatly to create something real in deep space, he achieved 2001's general story with Arthur C. Clarke. The end of the film is of no consequence to Clarke; he would rather enjoy literal meanings, as evidenced by his novelization of the film (which was written by him with Kubrick at the same time). Rather, the end of the film is a fever of light and sound that makes little sense when merely watched. If you take each shot visually and comprehend what it means in the grand scheme, a pattern begins to occur; dismiss them as a hallucination, or meaningless, then the entire movie is lost on you. Kubrick wanted to pose questions, and he probably had the answers, but we can only guess and interpret what it all means.
The experimental nature of both of these pieces makes them perfect companions for Synchronization.
What Happens After?
Watch the credits. Don't talk.
Beware
Make sure you've seen the movie before attempting this, or really any Synch. Having a clear opinion of the film beforehand is helpful. This Synch could prompt discussion of the film from a different perspective. Or it could just be an acid trip.
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